


My Beautiful World

by NellDaie



Category: Mystic Messenger (Video Game)
Genre: Abuse (CH.2 Only), Bad Ending/Good Ending, Depressing, F/M, Mental Health Issues, POV First Person, Psychotic Break (CH.2 Only), Suicide (CH.2 Only)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-04
Updated: 2017-05-05
Packaged: 2018-10-28 02:54:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10822257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NellDaie/pseuds/NellDaie
Summary: Jumin's son has schizophrenia. His father still expects him to take over the company. Only one person really understands him.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this idea for awhile. Hyun-Ae is based off of Myetie's design, but this isn't based in Myetie's AU (which is amazing). If you haven't checked it out, you can find it here: https://myetie.tumblr.com/post/154396875233/rfa-mc-family-au-quick-look-do-not-repost
> 
> So, I know it's depressing, but I tried to make it a little better at the end? Overall I like happy endings, so I really wanted to end it on a somewhat nice note :p

_The world I see is beautiful and bright,_

_It's filled with color,_

_Consumed with light,_

_This is the world made just for me,_

_Soft and calm,_

_Pure serenity._

_You couldn't see this place,_

_So I understand,_

_The concerned look on your face._

_When you asked day after day,_

_I told you I was fine..._

_Really...I'm okay._

_My world crumbled,_

_My perfect paradise,_

_Good intentions fumbled._

_I wasn't everything you dreamed of,_

_But I could've been better,_

_With just a little more love._

_But when you turned,_

_Those cold eyes on me,_

_My mind reeled...my stomach churned._

_I miss my sanctuary,_

_Its lilting lullaby,_

_Lost like a mine canary._

 

I looked in the mirror. Exhausted blue eyes stared back at me. I tried my best to adjust my tie and smooth down my messy blonde hair. I was already 23 years old. Dad said I had to start taking this seriously. I'm trying, but...I don't think he understands what it's like. I brush my teeth and head downstairs to my most hated part of the day- family breakfast.

Mom is bright and sunny as usual. My coloration comes from her, but people say I look just like my dad with chubbier cheeks and a different color palette. I sit down to eggs, bacon, orange juice and...the pill. I work through the food slowly while dad drones on about the meetings I'll have to attend that day with him. I'll meet a lot of people, I need to be alert. I nod at everything, keeping my eye on the pill. 

"Ren, take your medication." He says simply. I slip it in my mouth, and swallow it, forcing it down my dry throat. It scratches and bores it's way into my stomach and I open my mouth so he can inspect it. I don't hide them anymore and try to throw them out. I just take them, and suffer the consequences.

As we near the C&R building, it looms over me like a black castle. I feel the medication kicking in, and the drowsiness settles me. The black castle turns grey. Everything turns grey. I don't feel anything. I follow my dad like a puppet. I smile and shake hands. Dad forgets to give me my second dose as the day wears on. I want to remind him, but the colors start coming back.

It's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I try to paint this image in my mind so that I can put it on canvas later. I can smell the oils as they stain my hands already. I start to feel and relish in the rainbow chromatic coloring filling my senses. It's just a normal office, but so much more than that at the same time. Dad ushers me into another meeting. My blindingly surreal symphony of hues turns into a cacophony of dark contrast. The businessmen seem to be judging me, filing my flaws away into little filing cabinets in their heads. I try to force myself to smile, but I feel the sweat prickling my scalp. The tremors are like nomads, travelling to my various body parts. I hide my hands behind my back when they reach my fingers, giving a falsely confident grin as my father gestures towards graphs and figures.

The meeting is coming to a close. I think I fooled them. I've won! They're like demons swarming to us. Shaking hands...shaking hands...shaking hands...my hands are shaking hands with no hands to shake. I hold them tight behind my back still. I'll shake my own hands. I'll smile and nod while they tell my dad how great I'll be. The pressure is weighing me down and I feel like I can't breathe. 

They don't know me. They don't know the horrendous creature inside. I feel him coming out, lurching through my stomach like Cthulhu. I feel him easing his way up my throat. I cough, and they look at me.I can't help but panic now. They feel so large surveying me and I feel so very, very small. I am a tiny vessel holding a hideously gigantic monster that is breaking free.

"D- DON'T LOOK AT ME!" I scream. Dad looks worried now. I push the men to the side as the monster rushes forward. I grasp a small trashcan and fall to my knees, sweating in torrents. The monster is released in the form of my breakfast and settles into the bottom of the wastebasket. I am gasping for air. I know they saw. Everyone saw. I can't escape the glimmer of thousands of eyes, evaluating me, scrutinizing me. I look up and Dad looks so disappointed again. I mutter an apology.

He takes me home, gives me a different pill, and I sleep. It feels like I sleep forever. My dreams are clouded under thick dust that I can never seem to blow away. Scenes play out, but I can't see them, or feel anything for them. It feels like glue is filling my mouth when my eyes finally open into the unrelentingly realistic world. I look next to my bed and see Hyun-Ae.

"Hey..." I croak out. I can't believe that's my voice. I look next to me and see water. And a pill. I sit up and take her in first. Her snow white hair glimmers like a prism in the evening sunlight. Her eyes like well- tended roses peer at me with love and concern. God I love her. I've painted so many pictures of her, and I'll never paint enough to feel like what I see has been translated properly. I sigh and take the damn pill. Her hand reaches out and strokes my pale fingers. Her smile is the most beautiful thing in the world, even if it is one of pity.

"Are you alright? Your mom told me what happened..." I nod. I'm taken aback when she reaches my covers up and climbs into bed with me, resting her head on my chest. She wouldn't be here if Dad was home. She's the only thing that makes me feel whole and new, and he believes that she isn't good for me. She nuzzles my neck. I don't have long. When the pill kicks in, I'll be unable to show her how much I love her, how much I ache for her. I hurriedly strip off my lounge pants and relieve her of her clothes. I make love to her the best way I can and whisper all of the agonizingly sweet things I want to say. She is a comforting breeze in a dry oasis. She is my angel. Her sighs of happiness are carved into the neurons firing off at a rapid pace in my brain as I dive into the saccharine bliss of her body. It's over too quickly-it always is- but just in time as the pill brings a heavy blanket upon my senses. She knows it, too, but still lays with me, though I now feel nothing. 

I find refuge at her apartment. She's my age, and follows in her father's footsteps. I'm jealous because she chose her path, while mine was laid out before me. When I was diagnosed, the path seemed unwalkable, but Dad made me soldier on. My body was covered in bruises and cuts, but still he urged my broken visage on. But not Hyun-Ae. She wants me to take my medication, but she also wants me to paint. She has a room at her apartment just for me. When I'm in it, I feel like I haven't lost my beautiful world in my mind. I feel like it's coming out, little by little. I even feel like there's a chance other people could see what I see. Even when the medication dulls my senses, I feel alive when I can paint.

I spend the night at her apartment, turning off my phone. I want to ignore that there is any place else but this, that there are other people existing besides her. She is lightness and joy incarnate, and I feel destroyed when she hands me the little white pill. 

"Hyun-Ae...am I good enough?" Tears prick at my eyes. A voice whispers that I should pluck them out. I ignore it. She hushes the growing whispers rattling in my mind as she pulls me close. The scent of her fills me up. If I can't have a soul, I can at least be filled with this piece of her. 

"Of course! I love you, Ren. I love you...so much..." I feel like I'm slowly fracturing. The cracks are getting deeper. I am a vase, and water is escaping from within me. It's covering her shirt, but mine is wet, too. We are both cracked.

"Why?" I hear myself say, though it sounds so very far away, "Why am I so broken? What did I do?" The last word is an echo and I feel like I'm drifting into space. I slowly come back after I take my pill. I can look her in the eyes again. The voices that screamed at me to break the vase and pluck out the roses are hushed. I am calm. I am diluted- but feel happiness lingering somewhere within me. It's only with her that I suspect I may be happy. Only when I can paint, and see her. 

I'll tell Dad. I can't be the heir to the company. Because I know that I can longer continue along this glass strewn, God forsaken path. I see a fork in the road ahead. One route leads into inky blackness, and the other one leads to bright city filled with color and life. But one thing is sure- this road ends.

 


	2. Pen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bad Ending.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hadn't been planning to continue this, but I like it when people like my stuff! So, I decided to do a good end/ bad end situation. If you don't want tragedy, *SKIP TO THE NEXT CHAPTER*. They both start from the same point.

"I don't understand how you could be so stupid. I won't let you bring this company down by acting like your grandfather..." I think he said more, but I retreat into the corners of my psyche. It has been a couple of days since my liberating refuge at Hyun-Ae's apartment. Someone took pictures. Now everyone knows about my angel and her mercy. I was just leaving the apartment, but the mill is turning and turning- belching out a litany of presumptions and accusations. I want this to stop. I want to break the whole damn thing and burn it to the ground. Dad realizes I'm no longer in this house in front of him- my mind is drifting through the atmosphere like a drunken, angry cloud. I visualize the things I want to do and the people I want to hurt for putting me in this situation. The whispers come in like a tidal wave and drown my common sense for a while. Until Mom comes in the room.

She floats like a tiny bird, flitting about my father and I in her attempts to bandage us back together. She doesn't realize that Dad is a Monet painting- exquisite and perfectly framed- while I am a child's pathetic attempt at what a person should look like. Even if you put us together, we will never fit in the same universe. His colors blend, though rough and textured- while mine bleed and don't even stay within the lines.

But maybe this little yellow bird could listen. If I open my mouth, if I extract my innermost feelings and desires and thrust them upon her- would she understand? I open it, but snap it shut almost immediately. She has the pill. Her gentle fingers drop it into my mismatched, ogreish claws. I pop it into my mouth and wait for my childish lines to smudge again. She smiles concernedly. As my father continues his ridiculous tirade that is turning into more of a soliloquy each passing second, I let the whispers and screams return. If I have monster-like hands, I can crush him. I can destroy this masterpiece work of art and rip it out of its fucking frame and burn it into ashes. The courtroom in my head has found him guilty and is handing down his sentence. But eventually, as it always is, that sentence is overturned. The crushing weight of the real world slips back to me. I clumsily nod acknowledgement at...whatever he finished his scolding with and leave the room. 

I call Hyun-Ae. I have to make sure she is okay. She sounds as beautiful as ever when her bell of a voice rings in my ear. 

"Ren! I was hoping you'd call! Are you okay?" 

"Yeah." A robot voice. She can't see it, but it has a robot smile with it. 

"Good..." I hear the realization that she knows I am medicated. Vaguely, I wonder if that makes her happy or sad. But it doesn't matter. Nothing matters when I'm idling through the sludge like this. 

"Ren...I don't mind that the media knows. Of course, my dad does, but...wh- what do you think?" I glance at the mirror and try to feign emotions. Such a shitty mask.

"It's fine, Ae. I love you." I desperately try to inject some semblance of a credible tone, but I just can't. The programming is too strong and the robot is in control. I think I might feel gratitude towards her sometimes in these moments, because she is the only person that could trust me when I say that in that dull voice. If her voice is a bell, mine is a drawling tone from a phone left off the hook. 

"I love you, too." I  _hear_ the smile when she says it. Jesus, why can't she have someone that can give that warm tenderness back? I met her when we were kids- before the diagnosis. I trapped her in this sycophantic mummer's farce of a goddamn life of mine when I was still naive enough to believe I could have her.

We continue to talk and decide to meet up at the end of the week. I'm sure my dad will have some kind of problem with me doing anything that doesn't directly reflect upon his greatness, but I need to see her. I need to breathe in the gentleness and serene security her existence grants. Even if it's just for a little while, I can paint and wear a human being's skin and feel like a Picasso instead of a child's sketch. 

When we say our goodbyes, the colors in my room turned from muted and bland to merely absent again. I continue through the week. I feel like I'm just being pulled along like a kid in a little red wagon. If the wagon were filled with little white pills. Dad never forgets my second dose again, and I smile and nod and smile and nod while pieces of my soul fall off bit by bit. No one notices, and I suspect no one would care if they did. I can't even muster enough concern for myself at this point. I was supposed to tell Dad that I didn't want this, and I tried to breach the subject a handful of times. But he immediately shut me out and locked the door. No matter how I pounded and pounded, he wouldn't open it. I saw myself inexorably lurching towards the fork in the road while the wind blew me toward the blackness.

The week couldn't end fast enough. I hurried to my saving grace, my heavenly commune. Hyun-Ae opens the door quickly. I hear snaps and flashes of light buzz past my peripheral vision but I step over the threshold brazenly. I was in a rush- I don't have my medication. I tell her I took it, but that it hasn't kicked in yet. She believes me because this is the first time I've ever lied to her. My heart does a somersault at the betrayal. But I need this. Just once, I want to make love to her without the clock ticking. I taste her, savor her, worship every inch of this goddess. Her moans fuel me for what feels like eons. I adore every molecule that bonded to make her. When I kiss her, if feels like I can suck in the very carbon that makes us similar beings. I want to paint this later. I want to brush this valley of lilies and roses onto a canvas and never show it to anyone. 

When we exhaust ourselves and embrace each other, I feel my soul slowly drifting back into me. I think of Dad again, and vow to tell him tomorrow. Not ask this time. I will just tell him. We both drift away on boats made from pleasurable groans and soft sighs. Her boat docks at a harbor on the outskirts of a golden, glittering city. Mine is shipwrecked. I dream of my father. I see the disappointment and the annoyance. The jury in my mind comes back in a flurry of shouts and whistles. 

"EXECUTION, EXECUTION, WE SENTENCE HIM TO DEATH!" It blares in my eardrums so loudly, that I want to stab pens into them to stop it. But I don't have to. In this twisted nightmare, they bring him to me. He is bound and pathetic. I am the one with power now. I am the judge this time. I consider using my gavel to carry out his sentence, but I want to feel it. I reach my tendril-like fingers out and grasp the pulsing veins in his neck. I clench them, feeling the blood slow and becoming so aroused at the shocked look in those cold, dead eyes. He gasps for air, croaking like an oil- deficient door hinge. The tremors come back to my hands but I ignore them as his small fingers scramble at my enlarged paws. 

"R- R- en...." A feminine squeak escapes. In confusion, I let go, and my dark fantasy world collides with reality. I open my eyes to find the gasping. I wish I hadn't. I want to close them again. Desperately, I blink several times until the same jury that sentenced my father to death mocks me at my incompetence. Hyun-Ae is writhing below me, greedily taking in breaths of oxygen. I see the purplish marks lining her porcelain neck. 

"Hy....Hyun-ae?" My voice is small. My emotions inside are exploding like fireworks. They explode out of my eye sockets and I collapse on her, staining her with my inconsolable sobbing. She places her hands on my head and cradles me to her breast.

"Shhh- you didn't mean it. It's okay." I'm trying to say words, but none can form through my thick saliva. She knows the truth of the neglected pill, but doesn't mention it. 

The next day, I hear the echoes of my footsteps in the stairs of C&R's corporate Hell. I still haven't taken my medication. I am not calm. I am resolute. I understand that there is beauty in this world. But if the universe in my head bleeds out into this one, it seems that I'll just destroy everything good. The media storm has been an unending squall of questions about Hyun-Ae's bruises. They are in the perfect shape of my disgusting hands, so I never had to bother admitting that it was my doing. 

I can't destroy her. Well, I may have already poisoned bits and pieces, but I can longer continue. The beautiful garden that she is must continue to flourish, and the weeds strangling it need to be taken care of. I open the door and step out into the fresh morning air. The purest blue sky I've ever seen meets me. I toddle forward and wonder if maybe I can be reborn as a cloud in the sky. I want that lightness- that lifting condensation. Then, I would only bring life when I rain upon the world. I could watch so many gardens bloom. And I could always watch my sweet seraph. I reach the edge and glance down. When I place my feet in their crisp black loafers in the edge, I feel the world shift.

It didn't take long. The circus brought its parade of jesters to the C&R building.  Snap...snap...snap...I haven't freed myself yet but they are still snapping away, waiting for the impact. Trucks show up, people surround my hellish prison. I see Dad, and for once he doesn't look disappointed. He is just concerned. I stroke my breast pocket. I have a picture of her. When I leave, I'll bring it with me so that I can always remember that face- that smile. That bell rings again and I snap my head to see her next to my dad. 

"REN!!" She is screaming for me. Now it's like a church bell, it's so loud. But the parasitic insects start swarming. I make my decision fast before they can consume her. I step forward.

I dive into a pool of black ink. Black like my father's signature, like the print on those documents. Black bile. Black eyes. 

Just.

Black.


	3. Paint

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Good Ending.

"I don't understand how you could be so stupid. I won't let you bring this company down by acting like your grandfather..." I think he said more, but I retreat into the corners of my psyche. It has been a couple of days since my liberating refuge at Hyun-Ae's apartment. Someone took pictures. Now everyone knows about my angel and her mercy for me.

Mother glides in like she's floating on clouds. She's always been my first line of defense against Dad's onslaughts against my character.

"Jumin, you're being ridiculous. It's healthy for him to have a girlfriend. Sometimes, I think you and Zen were ex- lovers with how absolutely uncompromising you are about him..." Dad's face contorts in an attempt to remain the staunch disciplinarian while having his sexuality called into question for the umpteenth time. I hold back a smile. Maybe with her on my side, I can tell him the things I've needed to say. Before I can open my mouth, though, Dad is ushering me into the loving embrace of Driver Kim's car. He tries to scold me more, but I tune him out. Instead, I focus on the colorless scenery, trying to stain it with color in my mind like some kind of strange paint-by-number. I say strange because I've always imagined what the world would look like if I could color it myself. I would turn everything into bastardized, enigmatic hues completely unrelated and clashing with one another just to see the effect. I think it could create a twisted beauty all of its own. Through the dullness, I feel something akin to excitement stirring in my belly. Once again, it's my thoughts of painting that nurture a human-like feeling within me. This excitement is quickly squashed when the physical embodiment of crushed dreams and aspirations (or at least mine) towers above the car. 

Most days at C&R are the same. I feel like I'm whooshed away by a torrent of water. It's as if I was tossed into a river by my father in the misguided hopes that eventually I would learn to swim. I vow to tell him at dinner tonight. I can flail enough to keep my head above water, but that doesn't mean I'm swimming. I'm just drowning at a slower rate. Hyun-Ae texts me throughout the day to make sure I'm alright- she's like branches I can desperately cling to for a moment of respite. I assure her that I'm fine before diving back into the bitingly cold water. 

After work, Dad almost looks...proud. I can't tell him as we head back home that my medication was given to me too early. It had piggy-backed on the dose from this morning. I was more zombie than man today. I guess that's why I fit in so well. The grey, decomposing flesh fits into that world so much better than my paints. Dad is talking. I force my bludgeoned senses to focus on him.

"...and if you really apply yourself, there's nothing you can't do. You ARE my son, Ren. You're extremely capable." I'll take that statement and run with it at dinner. There's nothing I can't do.

"Thank you, Dad." Should I smile? Is that appropriate right now? I frantically search through my catalog of typical human interaction when I see him give me a businessman's smirk. I return in kind. I wish it weren't so damn hard to function right now. The only way I can continue in his world is if my rotting corpse is pulled through it. I harden my resolve even more as we pull up to the Han residence. Reporters have been attempting to hound us all day, but our bodyguards are as capable as ever. I worry about Hyun-Ae. I spared a glance at internet gossip sites on my lunch, and a lot of them speculated about my 'unknown mental illness'. They said I could hurt her. One of them even hit it right on the nose and speculated that I might have moderate schizophrenia. Nobody but those closest to my family know about the diagnosis, and we plan to keep it that way. The closest I have ever felt to my father is in this way- he protects me from the speculations and probing of the media. In my darker moments, I wonder if it's really to protect C&R, but the way he looks when someone asks him that question in an interview or on the street...it's like, for just a moment, someone ripped off the mask of the corporate mogul and revealed my dad. He just looks concerned for me and my happiness. I have to remember that tonight.

I call Hyun-Ae as soon as we pass the threshold. Dad gives me a look, but thankfully says nothing as I kick off my shoes and run to my room. 

"Ren! How was today?" The sweetest sound I've ever heard. She could be calling me names and pointing out all of my flaws and it would still make my heart sing to listen to her.

"Fine. I mean, it's the same as always."

"Did you have time to consider my offer?" I swear I can hear her eyebrows waggle. Her 'offer' was that she has been trying to convince me to move in with her. I want to...but I can't if I'm working at C&R still. I don't want to expose her to the worst sides of me. I have a suspicion that she knows already, but I want to fool myself into believing I've saved her from it.

"Can I tell you tomorrow?" I ask. She concedes and our conversation dips into the easy stream of consciousness that it usually is. It's like I'm sitting in a cool babbling brook on a hot Summer day. All of my worries are just gently whisked away. When we hang up and dinner rolls around, I feel like little fairies are doing jumping jacks in my stomach. I soldier on, however, and bring myself to sit at the meal provided by our cook. A few silent bites in, and I decide to go for it.

"Dad, you said I could do anything earlier..." I start. He finishes his sip of wine and looks at me. Mom looks concerned because I almost never initiate a conversation. 

"Yes, that's true."

"What if....what if the thing I want to do...isn't taking over C&R?" He chokes on his steak and Mom pats his back for him. Does she look...proud? I'm not surprised when she's the next to speak.

"What else would you want to do, Sweetheart?" She cuts my dad a look before he can open his mouth and expel whatever vomit he had ready.

"I kind of like to paint..." My cheeks heat up. Does everyone feel this embarrassed talking to their parents about hobbies? Dad coughs. I'm honestly afraid at this point that he's IS going to choke on his steak. I focus on my own food as silence hangs over the table like a clouds threatening rain. But a few moments later, it seems that the clouds are scattered by the sun.

"I need to see your work." Dad says. Now it's my turn to choke.

"See it?" I squeak out.

"If this is what you would truly prefer, I won't have you doing it poorly." Mom looks as shocked as I am before dad lifts himself up. He looks at me expectantly.

"Oh! My- my paintings aren't here...they're at..." I trail off, but I know he understands.

"Tell her that we will be taking the day off from work tomorrow to see them. 12 p.m. sharp. I don't care what she's doing or for whom- she will meet us there at that time." He says curtly before stalking off. Mom gives me a blindingly bright smile. Dad is like a dark sky that always threatens a squall, while mom is like the gentle sunlight peeking through and keeping it at bay. She gives me an enthusiastic thumbs up and kisses the top of my head before following Dad. I leave my golden hair tousled, relishing in how my cheeks are burning with delighted anticipation. 

The next day, Mom and Dad don't have to remind me to take my medication. I readily pop it in my mouth at the start of breakfast. I don't feel like I'm taking it today to force myself along a wretched path. I feel like I'm taking it so I can better focus on the new one I'm forging. I called Hyun-Ae first thing, and was amused to hear her sleepy voice muffled by pillows. She perked up right away when I told her the plan. 

"I'll have to move some stuff around, but that's totally okay! Warn your dad about the paparazzi- they've been staking my place out. Crap! I need to clean, is your dad going to want anything to drink? I think I just have beer...but he can have one of those if he...." And it went on like that for awhile. I'm happy that she's excited. I know that I am too, though it'll be more of a muted sort when the pill kicks in. 

We pull up to Hyun-Ae's luxury apartments amid a cancerous swarm of reporters. I'm glad our security detail is there to make a path. I feel like a field of wheat surrounded by locusts. Just as their incessant humming of questions starts to feel like trepanation, we mercifully make our way into the safety of the stark white building. Hyun-Ae opens the door and I almost hug her until I make out a figure behind her.

"Mr. Zen. Hello." I nervously shift, trying to appear courteous. I don't think he believes me. He is, after all, one of the few people that knows about my mental illness. He gives me a quick nod before turning his gaze towards my dad.

"Well, I'm glad you listened to me." Huh? I give me dad a questioning glance. 

"Zen had a dream about me. I can't say I was happy about it..." The mischievous glint in his eye tells me he's teasing him. Sometimes I wonder if mom was right about those two...

"A PROPHETIC DREAM YOU POMPOUS ASS." He glares daggers at Dad before turning to me. "I had a dream that you did something very stupid because your father wanted to force you into a life you didn't want. So I called him yesterday to tell him to listen to you if you had anything to say..." Ah. So that was why dad was so willing to humor me. I nodded, feeling the heavy weight of expectations lingering in the air.

"Well!" Hyun-Ae clapped her delicate hands together, "Let me show you Ren's paintings!" She bounced down the hallway, her hair like undyed cotton candy bobbing with each step. I felt anxious. I actually FELT anxious. The world that I had prayed for so long to show would finally be in the open. My father was finally going to see what I saw.

Hyun-Ae opened the door and an explosion of color filled the expanse of my mind. I felt unmedicated, pure and glowing. I knew that Dad saw my world, too, because he smiled. He actually smiled like a truly proud father. Not a businessman, a mogul or a boss- in that moment, he was just my dad, and he was proud of me. 

It has since been a few weeks. I actually got some recognition for my paintings, as Dad cited my other interest for my reason in relinquishing my claim on the company. I've moved in with Hyun-Ae, though we ended up buying a house in the country. Reporters don't know about it, so it's our true home. Her apartment is mostly my studio now. I don't feel sick, or perverse or like an ill made clay sculpture of a person. I feel complete and worthy of the life I am living. Each day, I am able to see the blessing within my unique brain. It brought me down this path, and to this glistening city of gold before me. 

I am okay.

I am well.

 

 


End file.
